TV journalist Dylan Lyons shot dead while reporting at murder scene in Florida

Published

3 years ago

February 23, 2023

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A TV journalist has been killed while reporting from the scene of a murder during a shooting spree in Florida that left a total of three people dead and two injured.

The reporter, named as 24-year-old Dylan Lyons, was covering the fatal shooting of Nathacha Augustin, 38, in Pine Hills, west of Orlando, at the time of the attack.

Mr Lyons was identified on Thursday by the channel Spectrum News 13, which also confirmed photographer Jesse Walden was injured while reporting at the scene.

It is believed the gunman first killed Ms Augustin, and then returned to the scene hours later where he shot Mr Lyons and his colleague.

The attacker then went to a nearby home where he fatally shot nine-year-old T’yonna Major and critically wounded her mother.

Police have detained a suspect, Keith Melvin Moses, 19, who they believe is responsible for all three shootings.

Moses has been formally charged with the murder of Ms Augustin, with whom he was acquainted.

Additional charges are set to follow relating to the other four victims, who were not known to him.

According to officials, the teenager has a lengthy criminal history – including charges related to firearms, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, burglary and theft.

A photo released by Orange County Sheriff’s Office showed Moses as he was taken into custody.

‘Horrible day’

At a news conference, Sheriff John Mina said it had been a “horrible day”.

He added: “No one in our community – not a mother, not a nine-year-old and certainly not news professionals – should become the victim of gun violence in our community.”

Mr Mina said the motive behind the shootings is currently unclear.

Mr Lyons and Mr Walden were in an unmarked news vehicle on Wednesday when they were approached by the gunman.

Mr Mina said it is unknown whether the suspect knew they were journalists.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre posted on Twitter: “Our hearts go out to the family of the journalist killed today and the crew member injured in Orange County, Florida, as well as the whole Spectrum News team.”

Spectrum 13 journalist Celeste Springer asked viewers to “please, please say a prayer” for Mr Walden during her live on-air report on Wednesday night.

“And while you’re at it, please say a prayer for every victim of gun violence in this country,” she added.

‘He was taken too early from us’

Spectrum Sports 360 reporter Josh Miller, a friend of Mr Lyons, told how he took his job “very seriously” and “loved is career”.

“He loved the community, telling the stories of people, reporting on the news, and he was just passionate about what he did.”

Mr Lyons’ older sister, Rachel, has now set up a GoFundMe page to raise funds for his funeral.

The Philadelphia-born journalist was an “acting father” to his niece and nephew, who he “loved so much,” she wrote.

“He loved his fiancee and was a devoted son to his mother and father. Dylan would have been 25 years old in March.

“He was a happy soul and wonderful person in life. My brother was our baby. He was taken too early from us.”

US

Donald Trump says he wants to meet North Korea’s Kim Jong Un again – as soon as ‘this year’

Published

2 days ago

August 26, 2025

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Donald Trump says he wants to meet North Korea's Kim Jong Un again - as soon as 'this year'

Donald Trump has said he wants to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un again.

Speaking at the White House as he held talks with the new South Korean president Lee Jae Myung, Mr Trump told reporters: “I’d like to meet him this year… I look forward to meeting with Kim Jong Un in the appropriate future.”

“I’d like to have a meeting. I got along great with him,” President Trump said, adding they “became very friendly” during his first term in office.

“We think we can do something in that regard,” he said, adding that he would like to help the relationship between the two Koreas.

Mr Trump and Mr Kim held three meetings between 2018 and 2019 during Mr Trump’s first term and exchanged a number of, what the president called, “beautiful” letters.

In June 2019, Mr Trump briefly stepped into North Korea from the demilitarized zone (DMZ) with South Korea.

The US president on Monday responded to a question about whether he would return to the DMZ by fondly recalling the last time he did so.

“Remember when I walked across the line and everyone went crazy?” especially the Secret Service, Mr Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

But “I loved it”, Mr Trump said. He added he felt safe because he had a good relationship with Mr Kim.

Mr Trump became the first sitting American president to set foot on North Korean soil six years ago.

However, little progress was made in curbing North Korea’s nuclear programme, and Mr Trump acknowledged in March this year that Pyongyang is a “nuclear power”.

Kim possible: Is Trump seeking another ‘Hermit Kingdom’ handshake?

It was Donald Trump’s first meeting with the new president of South Korea.

A highly unconventional platform for glowing words about the North Korean one.

He said he got along “great” with Kim Jong Un and would like to meet him again “this year”.

The US president’s renewed interest in North Korea appears less about policy and more about theatrics.

The historic image of President Trump stepping on to North Korean soil in 2018 gave him global headlines.

The timing is curious – North Korea has been busy polishing its nuclear credentials and vowing not to disarm without serious concessions.

In other words, Pyongyang is holding the same cards it held four years ago, only now they’re shinier.

But Trump seems eager to revive his image as the only US president bold, or brash, enough to break bread with the ruler of the “Hermit Kingdom”.

Supporters call it visionary diplomacy; critics call it reality TV masquerading as foreign policy.

Either way, President Trump clearly sees value in the spectacle.

Whether Kim Jong Un does is another story.

Since Mr Trump’s first-term meetings with Mr Kim ended, North Korea has shown no interest in returning to talks.

The White House said in June that Mr Trump would welcome communications with Mr Kim.

The attempts at rapprochement come after the election in South Korea of Mr Lee, who has pledged to reopen dialogue with North Korea.

As a gesture of engagement in June, Mr Lee suspended South Korean loudspeakers blasting music and messages into the North at the DMZ along their shared border.

Analysts say, however, that engaging North Korea will likely be more difficult for both Mr Lee and Mr Trump than it was in the president’s first term.

Since then, North Korea has significantly expanded its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes.

And it has developed close ties with Russia through direct support for Moscow’s war in Ukraine, with Pyongyang providing both troops and weaponry.

Mr Kim told Russian President Vladimir Putin that his country will always stand with Moscow, state media reported in June.

US

Lil Nas X pleads not guilty after being charged with assaulting police officer

Published

2 days ago

August 26, 2025

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Lil Nas X pleads not guilty after being charged with assaulting police officer

US rapper Lil Nas X has pleaded not guilty after being charged with assaulting a police officer while walking in downtown Los Angeles in his underwear.

The musician, real name Montero Lamar Hill, was taken to hospital and arrested after police responded to reports of a naked man shortly before 6am on Thursday.

The district attorney’s office said on Monday that Lil Nas X faces three counts of battery with injury on a police officer and one count of resisting an executive officer.

He was being held on a $75,000 (£55,457) bail, conditional on attending drug treatment. It is not immediately clear whether he had posted it and been released yet.

He is set to return to court on 15 September for his next pre-trial hearing.

During the hearing on Monday, Hill’s lawyer Christy O’Connor told the judge he had led a “remarkable” life, adding: “Assuming the allegations here are true, this is an absolute aberration in this person’s life.

“Nothing like this has ever happened to him.”

A law enforcement source told Sky’s US partner network, NBC News, on Thursday that the Old Town Road and Industry Baby hitmaker punched an officer twice in the face during the encounter.

The source added officers were unsure whether he was on any substances or in mental distress.

NBC News cited TMZ footage where Hill was seen walking down the middle of Ventura Boulevard at 4am on Thursday in a pair of white briefs and cowboy boots.

In the videos, Hill tells a driver to “come to the party” in one clip and in another tells the person: “Didn’t I tell you to put the phone down?”

“Uh oh, someone’s going to have to pay for that,” Hill says as he continues to walk away.

In some clips, Hill struts as if he’s on a catwalk, posing for onlookers, and at one point he places an orange traffic cone on his head.

US

Kilmar Abrego Garcia: Man wrongly deported from US to El Salvador detained by ICE again

Published

2 days ago

August 26, 2025

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Kilmar Abrego Garcia: Man wrongly deported from US to El Salvador detained by ICE again

A man who was wrongly deported from the US to El Salvador has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) again.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a 30-year-old originally from El Salvador, handed himself into the ICE field office in Baltimore, Maryland, for a check-in on Monday.

The visit was a mandatory condition of his release from federal custody earlier this weekend. However, in a court filing on Saturday, his lawyers said they expected Garcia would be detained again upon attending.

Garcia is charged in an indictment, filed in federal court in Tennessee, with conspiring to transport illegal immigrants into the US.

According to a court filing by his lawyers, immigration officials made an offer to Garcia to be deported to Costa Rica in exchange for pleading guilty to the charges.

Otherwise, they would seek to deport him to Uganda.

Speaking at a news conference outside the ICE office on Monday morning, Garcia said via a translator: “This administration has hit us hard, but I want to tell you guys something: God is with us, and God will never leave us.

“God will bring justice to all the injustice we are suffering.”

Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, one of Garcia’s lawyers, also said: “There was no need to take him into ICE detention… the only reason they took him into detention was to punish him.”

A judge later ruled Garcia could not be deported after he filed a challenge asking to be allowed due process to fight any removal attempt.

Judge Paula Xinis ruled the 30-year-old must remain detained in the US until she can hold an evidentiary hearing – set for Wednesday.

She added there appeared to be “several grounds” for her to have jurisdiction to exercise relief, including that Uganda has not agreed to offer Garcia protections, such as being able to walk freely, being given refugee status, and not being re-deported to El Salvador.

After initially being detained in Maryland – where he lived with his American wife and children – by ICE in March, Garcia was sent to El Salvador, where he was then imprisoned in the country’s maximum security Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).

This was despite an immigration judge’s 2019 order granting him protection from deportation after finding he was likely to be persecuted by local gangs if he was returned to his native country.

The Trump administration admitted deporting Garcia was an “administrative error”, but said at the time they could not bring him back as they do not have jurisdiction over El Salvador.

After eventually returning him to the US in June, the Trump administration detained Garcia on criminal charges that were filed in May.

The criminal indictment alleges Garcia worked with at least five co-conspirators to bring immigrants to the US illegally and transport them from the border to other destinations in the country.

Minutes after his release on Friday, officials notified Garcia they intended to deport him to Uganda.

Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem, US President Donald Trump, vice president JD Vance and other officials claim Garcia was a member of MS-13 – an international criminal gang formed by immigrants who had fled El Salvador‘s civil war to protect Salvadoran immigrants from rival gangs.

Garcia’s lawyers strongly deny the claims.